What is the second most important thing for you come one student remember? It is how stringent the requirements for any form of "market efficiency" are: how many ways a market economy can go wrong and go badly wrong. I count seven ways that market economies can and do go badly wrong: First, the m...

Good advice - I'd like to combine it with some kind of testing. That is produce, produce, produce, but test each iteration against some kind of standard you want to attain: academic, technical aesthetic. You certainly don't get better without practice but undirected growth can have negative consequences (viz cancer).

Nathan Bowers pointed me to this five year old Cool Tools entry on the book Art & Fear. Although I am not at all ready to call software development "art" -- perhaps "craft" would be more appropriate, or "engineering" if you're feeling generous -- the parallels between some of the advice off...